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On a Tesla: Don't

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Re: On a Tesla: Don't

#51

Post by Aeolun »

londons_explore wrote: post #24
avhception wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something like this happened in my Skoda a while ago. Driving along on the Autobahn when a really minor irregularity in the road caused the bag I had placed on the passenger seat to be pushed into the seat very gently, triggering the passenger-side seat belt alarm. I had to take the next exit and park somewhere to get it to shut up. Unrelated but also relevant to the story: My father's new car (a brand-new Nissan) st…

> . I had to take the next exit and park somewhere to get it to shut up This is the safe thing to do. A bag heavy enough to set off the sensors (usually 10kg) is gonna kill someone if not belted in in an accident. It is not uncommon for bags to go through the front windscreen and kill someone in the car that crashes into you .

> It is not uncommon for bags to go through the front windscreen and kill someone in the car that crashes into you.

With respect.

It's uncommon to crash.

It's rare to have a 10kg bag in your car.

It's vanishingly unlikely to have a 10kg bag in a position where it can fly through the front windshield and hit, and kill, someone in the car that crashes into you.

Of course there's enough kilometers driven that it happens, but that doesn't make it anywhere close to 'not uncommon'.

Re: On a Tesla: Don't

#52

Post by Aschebescher »

msh wrote: post #43
wolframhempel wrote: post #5

On the "yelling at me" part - I find this an absolutely puzzling design pattern that a number of automakers have adopted. I was driving a Volkswagen ID4 - their mid-size electric car - the other day, and my dog was on the back seat. She triggered the seat belt alarm, but not straight away, only once we were on the German Autobahn. It showed the icon on the dashboard, then it started beeping. Then it started beeping l…

If there is a passenger without a seat belt I think most places you are supposed to pull over ASAP to solve the situation.

It's illegal to stop on the Autobahn if your car is still in driving condition.

Re: On a Tesla: Don't

#53

Post by kelnos »

andyferris wrote: post #31
quonn wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - it is dangerously hard to use any control that doesn't have a dedicated button. The touchscreen in a moving car is a moving mess of tiny targets crowded too close together No it isn't. > - even if you have a dedicated control for say wipers, you will still curse interval wipers. Sensor-based wipers fail to predict rain regularly. I discussed this topic recently with a friend, her Mercedes has the same problem and…

I’ve literally never seen a car without a spare tire. It’s usually hidden underneath the trunk these days. I assumed it was law? EDIT: never mind, I see Teslas come with a repair kit instead. (I suppose by modern car you might mean electric.) TIL

My 2022 Mercedes has no spare tire, and there's no room for one under the trunk bed. I was told the tires are run-flat tires. Which I guess is fine for some short distance, but after that, I'll be SOL. Really wish there was a spare. And I'm sure when the tires need replacement, they'll be much more expensive than the regular non-run-flat ones.

Re: On a Tesla: Don't

#54

Post by kelnos »

cm2187 wrote: post #19

If you read to the end, predictably, his biggest problem is Musk's politics... The comparison to Apple is not particularly great. I don't know how distracted is Cook and what his politics are, but I am still dealing with major iphone bugs than apple never bothered to fix in years, like all the music artwork being randomly reschuffled. And the experience only gets worse with time with more aggressive nagging for Apple…

> If you read to the end, predictably, his biggest problem is Musk's politics...

Not really sure how you got that; to me it seemed like more an afterthought. The author had already made his case before we got to the (fairly short) political section.

Re: On a Tesla: Don't

#55

Post by Turskarama »

plastic3169 wrote: post #49
wolframhempel wrote: post #5

On the "yelling at me" part - I find this an absolutely puzzling design pattern that a number of automakers have adopted. I was driving a Volkswagen ID4 - their mid-size electric car - the other day, and my dog was on the back seat. She triggered the seat belt alarm, but not straight away, only once we were on the German Autobahn. It showed the icon on the dashboard, then it started beeping. Then it started beeping l…

”In 2003, the Transportation Research Board Committee, chaired by two psychologists, reported that "Enhanced SBRs" (ESBRs) could save an additional 1,000 lives a year.[100] Research by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that Ford's ESBR, which provides an intermittent chime for up to five minutes if the driver is unbelted, sounding for 6 seconds then pausing for 30, increased seat belt use by 5 percenta…

That's the driver, but I've had similar problems with the car yelling at me when I put a sufficiently heavy bag of shopping on the passenger seat.

The only seat where the weight is guaranteed to be a human is the drivers seat. By all means, put an alarm on that seat, but the other seats can contain things other than passengers.

Re: On a Tesla: Don't

#56

Post by Dalewyn »

quonn wrote: post #44
Dalewyn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No it isn't. Touchscreens demand I look away from my surroundings, because I will never know where anything is nor if I did whatever I wanted to do correctly. That is fundamentally terrible as regards safe driving.

Can you give an example of something that really needs to be adjusted on the touchscreen while driving that cannot be adjusted using the buttons on the steering wheel on the Model 3? I never ever need to do this. Additionally the lane keeping and adaptive cruise control on the highway are rock solid, so even if you would look briefly - for example at the navigation system, just like in any other car - not much can ha…

>using the buttons on the steering wheel on the Model 3?

I suppose I should clarify I am speaking generally, I don't own nor have I ever driven a Tesla. I have, however, had to deal with touchscreen controls in recent years.

>even if you would look briefly

>a brief peak at a touchscreen.

The thing about touchscreens is they demand more than just a "brief" "peak". I need to look at it, obviously, and also devote considerable attention and mental processing to comprehending what's on the screen and then moving my hand and finger as necessary.

I can't rely on muscle memory or peripheral sensory feedback, because nothing is ever in the same, consistent place on a touchscreen nor is there any useful tactile or auditory feedback. I must decipher the touchscreen every time and hope to dear god the shitsilicon running the thing can process my input in a timely and reliable manner (spoiler: it won't).

One time, the touchscreen controls for the AC locked up and stayed broken until I turned the entire car off and back on when I was done with that leg of driving.

Touchscreen controls in a car are a driving hazard, I would argue worse than "text and drive" smartphones.

Re: On a Tesla: Don't

#57

Post by Turskarama »

DrBazza wrote: post #33
wolframhempel wrote: post #5

On the "yelling at me" part - I find this an absolutely puzzling design pattern that a number of automakers have adopted. I was driving a Volkswagen ID4 - their mid-size electric car - the other day, and my dog was on the back seat. She triggered the seat belt alarm, but not straight away, only once we were on the German Autobahn. It showed the icon on the dashboard, then it started beeping. Then it started beeping l…

It's a wider problem than just the seatbelts. The whole cockpit of a car is now a distraction from the most critical thing - driving safely. For reasons I don't understand, tactile push buttons, with physical feedback, for most tasks are increasingly being replaced with a touch screen you have to look at rather than looking at the road instead and just reaching over to the dashboard. Hanlon's Razor? It feels like the…

It is literally because it's cheaper, but ironically my Kia Rio, one of the cheapest cars on the road, has physical buttons.

Re: On a Tesla: Don't

#58

Post by rsynnott »

autonomousErwin wrote: post #9

Could one argue Tesla's Marketing approach to FSD is almost machiavellian and targeted not at consumers but in actual fact, engineers to come and work for them? If they do eventually be the first then all is forgiven (i.e. Fritz Haber is known for the Haber-Bosch process, and not for inventing mustard gas). If they don't, they'll slowly fade into irrelevancy and they'll end up as an MBA case study in 50 years. If the…

> Could one argue Tesla's Marketing approach to FSD is almost machiavellian and targeted not at consumers but in actual fact, engineers to come and work for them?

"We over-promote a product which is unfit for purpose, then vaguely claim it is a beta, as if that somehow makes the over-promotion okay" is generally the sort of thing that scares engineers away, rather than attracting them. Like, it's basically a poorly-run-company _trope_.

> If they're a company that seem the closest to solving the biggest problem in using auto-motives

I mean, maybe, if that were the case, but it clearly isn't. That would probably be Waymo.

Re: On a Tesla: Don't

#59

Post by alister »

A Tesla used to be called the "best car ever made" — eleven years ago.

In 2013 Consumer Reports called the Tesla Model S the best car it had ever tested. The Model S earned a score of 99 out of a possible 100 in the magazine's tests.

"If it could recharge in any gas station in three minutes, this car would score about 110," said Jake Fisher, head of auto testing for Consumer Reports. Fisher called the car's performance in the magazine's performance tests "off the charts."[1]

What happened in the last 11 years? Did Teslas get worse or did expectations change significantly?

[1] https://money.cnn.com/2013/05/09/autos/tesla-model-s-consume...

Re: On a Tesla: Don't

#60

Post by evansj »

Turskarama wrote: post #55
plastic3169 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

”In 2003, the Transportation Research Board Committee, chaired by two psychologists, reported that "Enhanced SBRs" (ESBRs) could save an additional 1,000 lives a year.[100] Research by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that Ford's ESBR, which provides an intermittent chime for up to five minutes if the driver is unbelted, sounding for 6 seconds then pausing for 30, increased seat belt use by 5 percenta…

That's the driver, but I've had similar problems with the car yelling at me when I put a sufficiently heavy bag of shopping on the passenger seat. The only seat where the weight is guaranteed to be a human is the drivers seat. By all means, put an alarm on that seat, but the other seats can contain things other than passengers.

Worth noting that something heavy enough to trigger the seat occupancy sensor can still do you a lot of damage as it flies around the inside of a car in a crash. I put the seatbelt on around boxes and bags if they're on the seat.
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